Hjalmar (sighs). Hereditary, no doubt.
Again, Act IV.:
Mrs. Sörby. ... He (Werle) is going blind.
Hjalmar (with a start). Going blind? That’s strange—Werle, too, becoming blind!
[332] Dr Prosper Lucas, Traité philosophique et physiologique de l’Hérédité naturelle dans les États de Santé et de Maladie du Système nerveux, etc. (The title occupies seven lines more!) Paris, 1847, 2 volumes, t. i., p. 250. (It appears that Montaigne had this inherited horror of doctors.)
[333] Lucas, op. cit., t. i., pp. 391-420: De l’hérédité des modes sensitifs de la vue. On page 400 he tells of a family in which the mother became blind at the age of twenty-one years, and the children at sixteen and seventeen respectively, etc.
[334] August Weismann, Ueber die Vererbung. Jena, 1883.
[335] F. Galton, Natural Inheritance. London, 1888.
[336] Page 136:
Mrs. Alving. I know one who has kept both his inner and his outer self unharmed. Only look at him, Mr. Manders.